


Swallowing the Morning

by enmity



Category: Tales of Series, Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 12:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: With her side pressed against the ground, Leia breathed, and slept, and waited for her answer.





	Swallowing the Morning

It hurts. She isn’t sure if she whispers it or if she can’t, if the pain and gurgling’s closed up her throat and she just thinks it, _it hurts_ and _stop_ and the explosive flash of Alvin’s gun setting off ricocheting in her skull, echoing against the dark walls of her delirium. Above her, Jude’s gaze shifts guiltily away, and he moves to press the cloth against her forehead.

He hears her, Leia knows, but doesn’t say anything, just brings the blanket to cover her shivering shoulders. She shifts against the sheets and pretends she’s falling back asleep as Jude takes his place on the floor, because there’s only one bed in the room and he figured he should stick around to keep watch, in case she fails again.

Failing, falling—she remembers tripping and bruising her knees a lot as a kid, even after she’d learned to walk a mile without her legs shaking from the exertion. Eventually Jude learned to catch her, an automatic gesture, the same way he learned to trade her blows with strikes of his own, his precise rationality a counterpoint to her unbreakable optimism. Leia knows, she had always been good at falling, at faltering, and so she trusted him to catch her once again, the way he always did.  

Had known he would fail, had known of the crater that Milla’s death had left in him, and yet, she hoped. Leia always hoped.

Had always been such a fool.

It’s quiet for a long time, and outside, she can sense the Hamil sky is awash in red. Red, blinding and vivid, and she hadn’t seen that much blood since she was a child, the locked-up memory of her accident resurfacing. Of herself on the ground, looking down on her hands burning and smeared red, and both times, she’d been too shocked to cry. She isn’t crying. She won’t. She _can’t_.

It hurts. She doesn’t want to wake Jude up so she ignores the anger in her stomach, the protesting ache of the hole in her shoulder, and she is too tired to feel betrayed—so she closes her eyes, and starts counting.

—

Milla is dead.

Leia remembers a bright flash of white, the glimpse of Jude’s shaking shoulders as he watched Milla leave, Muzét’s gleeful, mocking laughter, and no matter how hard Leia called out to him Jude wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t look at her—because Milla is dead.

She hadn’t known it was possible for him to be so weak.

His plate is on the floor again. She holds him by the shoulders, almost furious, and nearly chokes when she looks into his eyes and sees they are full of shadows. She looks away.

She throws the ruined, uneaten food into the trash and washes her hands in the stream, smashing the river’s mirror into pieces as she splashes her face until all traces of unhappiness fades away. _It’s okay_ , she recites to her wavering reflection. _I’m sure Jude will wake up soon. He’ll be himself in no time._

She washes her face again.

Leia comes back and the house is dark. The windows are shut and the curtains are drawn, and she sets upright the chair he’d knocked away in their argument, the mug she’d left for him that subsequently ended on the floor, hot contents spilling everywhere. She stands in the bedroom doorway and Jude doesn’t answer her when she calls out to him. Milla is gone and he is halfway gone with her, and she is beginning to think that is exactly where he wants to be.

She tries again.

She leans her forehead against the door. “You can’t stay like this forever, you know,” she whispers, voice watery, and retreats before her eyes start to prickle.

Two rooms over, she hears footsteps approaching, and freezes.

—

Jude carries her down the dirt path, into the abandoned house, and in the last few seconds before consciousness fades Leia splutters, coughed-up blood making a mess of his jacket. She remembers being a child, overestimating her limits; falling down after training had ended, and he had to carry her back home, to the doctor’s office. He’d gotten a slap and a lecture for his trouble, and though he assured her with a smile that it was fine, it wasn’t her fault, the guilt clung to her for weeks.

She hadn’t been thinking. Just took hold of his hand and dragged him and _ran_ with all the might she could muster, heartbeat and blood pounding in her ears even as her legs started to ache, muscles threatening to strain and give.

Then—gunshots.

She screamed, fell, and before the pain registered through the shock she’d had it in her mind that the blood dripping down her arm wasn’t her own. Her knees burned as she rolled across the grass, and she caught a glimpse of Jude’s back, turned to her, and it was as though she’d stopped breathing, because he didn’t turn around, didn’t rush to catch her the way he used to. Her leg twitched. She wanted to scream again, but her throat was closed up and all she could let out was blood, spilling steadily onto the ground, seeping into her clothes.

Why? Why?

Had he finally left her for good?

But she didn’t regret. With her side pressed against the ground, Leia breathed, and slept, and waited for her answer.

**Author's Note:**

> some kinda thing i wrote about that part where leia gets shot, pointless and rambly but i wanted to let it out. julei amirite. anyway thanks for reading


End file.
